On the pronunciation of English -ing

[Bedelato]

I haven't started any topics for a while

Anyways, I've noticed something about the pronunciation of the English verb ending <-ing>.

In my idiolect, this suffix is pronounced as [-ɨŋ]; <running> would be [ɻʌnɨŋ].
However, several people I know say [-in] instead, making it sound more like <-een>.

What gives? Anyone else notice this?

[roninbodhisattva]

I haven't started any topics for a while

Anyways, I've noticed something about the pronunciation of the English verb ending <-ing>.

In my idiolect, this suffix is pronounced as [-ɨŋ]; <running> would be [ɻʌnɨŋ].
However, several people I know say [-in] instead, making it sound more like <-een>.

What gives? Anyone else notice this?

I have [iN] ~ [IN] and sometimes [In] when I shorten the ending.

[TaylorS]

I have a syllabic /n/ except in very formal speech.

[Bob Johnson]

In normal (fast) speech, I have [ˈɻʌ.nɪn] or [ˈɻʌn.ɪ̯ŋ]~[ˈɻʌn.ŋ]. I think I heard someone on here say that there is California dialect, but I'm on the wrong end of the country to confirm that. It sounds like a Spanish accent to me.

[schwhatever]

[In] or [iN] and yes those are the only two options (whoo California Vowel Shift!).

EDIT: At least in my idiolect, I > i /_N and only under those conditions, so the option of which way to pronounce the terminal consonant in -ing determines the pronunciation of the vowel.

[Drydic]

It would help us try and help you figure out what is happenning if you told us where you were from more specifically than 'oh somewhere in the second-largest English-speaking country in the world.' There's at least 6 distinct dialects across the continental US, which are quite different.

[AnTeallach]

Before /ŋ/ English doesn't distinguish the KIT and FLEECE vowels; the "ing" vowel is associated with KIT in most (I think) English dialects but with FLEECE in some American ones. Given this it's not surprising that some of these dialects maintain the FLEECE vowel when they "g drop", giving [in].

Similarly the "ang" vowel can be associated with TRAP or with FACE.

[Miekko]

Historically, -in is probably a retention of the actual participle form, whereas -ing was the gerund.

[finlay]

there's a dichotomy between -ŋ and -n in every English dialect ever, although they're given different social values by different areas. I'm more confused about your vowel, frankly. Where are you from?

(and yeah, they're from the OE participle form -inde and gerund form -ynge)

[Bedelato]

there's a dichotomy between -ŋ and -n in every English dialect ever, although they're given different social values by different areas. I'm more confused about your vowel, frankly. Where are you from?

USA. It might be observer's paradox, but I could swear that the vowel IMI is [ɨ], high central vowel. When I "g-drop" it's [ɪn]. But I still have trouble assigning it to a lexical set.

I'm not talking about "g-dropping" (that's a very well-known variation in many Englishes), but something different. I'm talking about what might be an ongoing sound change. I'm mostly concerned with the vowel.

Especially at the end of an utterance, I've begun noticing several people say [in] for the suffix, so that "being" and "bean" almost become homophones.

Some of you mentioned California dialects. I'll look into that, but what with air travel and all that, you can't exactly pinpoint a regional accent anymore.

[finlay]

Pick a different word where the "standard" pronunciation doesn't have /i:/ in it anyway and then see what happens. I mean I have something like /bi:n/ for 'being' a lot of the time too simply because /i:ɪ/ is an obvious candidate for assimilation.

[Bedelato]

Pick a different word where the "standard" pronunciation doesn't have /i:/ in it anyway and then see what happens. I mean I have something like /bi:n/ for 'being' a lot of the time too simply because /i:ɪ/ is an obvious candidate for assimilation.

Okay. Beginning paraphrase 3:

In the speech of several people I've met, the suffix <-ing> is pronounced [-in] so that "morphing" and "morphine" would be almost homophones.

[Nortaneous]

Where are they from? That's a feature of conservative Southern Midland. Do they also have [im] for "him"?

I'm not quite sure what the environment is for the ɪ > i shift there. My calculus professor spoke conservative Southern Midland and had [dɚˈivəˌɾiv] for "derivative".

[makvas]

I hear [iN] all over the place in the USA, in free variation with stuff like [IN] and [1N]. I'd guess that [in] would most likely be due to assimilation from [iN] with the following word?

[Travis B.]

For starters, I myself am used to, typically, the informal present participle ending in North American English being -/ɪn/ (for me -[ɨ̃(ː)n]) and the gerund ending and formal present participle ending in NAE being -/ɪŋ/ (for me -[ɨ̃(ː)ŋ]) (and note the vowels here are near-close, but IPA just doesn't typically distinguish close and near-close unrounded central vowels), with some NAE varieties (but not my own) carrying over the former ending to gerunds as well. The only cases where I have heard of NAE varieties having -/iːn/ (presumably something like [ĩ(ː)n]) and -/iːŋ/ (presumably something like -[ĩ(ː)ŋ]), respectively, are NAE varieties in the Pacific Northwest, even though it could be found elsewhere for all I know.

But Bedelato, why are you so ambiguous about where you are from here? NAE varieties are not nearly as homogeneous as you may think they are; saying you are from the US is not saying much here at all.

[Drydic]

But Bedelato, why are you so ambiguous about where you are from here? NAE varieties are not nearly as homogeneous as you may think they are; saying you are from the US is not saying much here at all.

Because, clearly, we are all stalkers who only want to find and CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED with rivets.

[sirred]

America is pretty big. Even of you don't want to say the city at least say the state. Think about it, if you live in Wyoming that'd still only narrow you down to 1 in about 560,000 people (well less really as not every person in the state is connected to the intertubes but you get what I'm saying).

[dɚˈivəˌɾiv] for "derivative".

That sounds so weird, and I live in a part of the country where for some speakers wash rhymes with whore.

[Nortaneous]

America is pretty big. Even of you don't want to say the city at least say the state. Think about it, if you live in Wyoming that'd still only narrow you down to 1 in about 560,000 people (well less really as not every person in the state is connected to the intertubes but you get what I'm saying).

Not to mention that the question is where the speakers with /in/ are from. I live in Maryland, but one of my high school teachers lived in Virginia.

[dɚˈivəˌɾiv] for "derivative".

That sounds so weird, and I live in a part of the country where for some speakers wash rhymes with whore.

Intrusive r in "wash" is pretty common. I think /I/-tensing is either a Maryland thing or a Tennessee thing.

[Drydic]

I just noticed something.

Some of you mentioned California dialects. I'll look into that, but what with air travel and all that, you can't exactly pinpoint a regional accent anymore.

Yes, yes you can. Most people really don't move all that far from where they grew up, generally.

[sirred]

I just noticed something.

Some of you mentioned California dialects. I'll look into that, but what with air travel and all that, you can't exactly pinpoint a regional accent anymore.

Yes, yes you can. Most people really don't move all that far from where they grew up, generally.

And even if they did, just because it's easy to travel does not mean that a Dubliner will sound like she's from West Texas in about a week.

[schwhatever]

Some of you mentioned California dialects. I'll look into that, but what with air travel and all that, you can't exactly pinpoint a regional accent anymore.

Yes, yes you can. Most people really don't move all that far from where they grew up, generally.

Agreed. In coastal northern California (and I'm thinking in good sections of souther California too, but not sure), there's a pretty concise set of vowel mergers regarding specific following nasals, so there's (at least among locals) virtually no free variation like (according to this thread) in other USA dialects. The almost entirely universal mergers (among speakers and among words) that come to mind:

-pen-pin which is pretty common elsewhere too - I E > I* /_n (exception for certain Bay Area idiolects)
-lennon-lenin which is a little more rare - I @ > I* /_n (near universal)
-{ tensing isn't just for the NCVS anymore - eI E*** { > e** /_N (near universal)
-I tensing - I i > i /_N

Supposedly the second to last one (the tensing of /{/) is part of a larger California shift where [{~], that is /{/ before a nasal, is rising compared to [{], that is everywhere else, which is being backed towards [a]. I don't hear this in either my idiolect or nearby ones, but it might be more common that I think. In either case, there's a lot

TL;DR: The entire vowel system is being reorganized in California, and it's progressed the furthest in nasal and rhotic environments.

*Exact quality is a little dicey. I think it's something around I_- in that it's a lot more central and back than but not quite [I\] or [1].
**The rising diphthongs /eI oU/ are getting a lot closer to [e: o:] in certain contexts and I think this might be one of them.
***I can't think of any instances of [EN] IMD which seems suspicious since there's also no [{N] at all, does any one have [EN] anywhere for comparison?

[finlay]

***I can't think of any instances of [EN] IMD which seems suspicious since there's also no [{N] at all, does any one have [EN] anywhere for comparison?

I can't think of any words in English with /ɛŋ/ apart from the name of the letter ŋ (eng), which I'm not sure counts for some reason. The name of the language itself, after all, exhibits [ɛŋ] → [ɪŋ].

As for /eɪŋ/, again I can think of a sole example, which is the Scottish surname Laing. Somehow I doubt you know that word, though, so I'm inclined to think you don't necessarily have that change, but then [æŋ] → [eŋ] would subsume it whether or not you do, I reckon.

I don't think /ɛŋ/ is necessarily disallowed by the language, it's just that there are precious few examples.

[makvas]

What about the word "penguin"? I've heard it pronounced with everything from [E] to , the latter being the most common around here.

[Travis B.]

What about the word "penguin"? I've heard it pronounced with everything from [E] to [i], the latter being the most common around here.

In my dialect at least, the word penguin and the name Genghis Khan, along with many Chinese names with -eng in them, have present-day /ɜŋ/ (historical /ɛŋ/), but all other cases of historical /æŋ/ and /ɛŋ/ I can think of have been merged with historical /eɪ̯ŋ/ to present-day /eŋ/; this also ignores the assimilation of present-day /ɜn/ (historical /ɛn/) to [ɜ̃(ː)ŋ]. (Present-day phonemes ignore nasalization and length here.)

[finlay]

What about the word "penguin"? I've heard it pronounced with everything from [E] to , the latter being the most common around here.

Ah good, I'm just shit at examples. Yeah, [ɛŋ] in penguin... if you pronounce it with a higher vowel you sound American.... unless you're talking about Pingu.